


It Wasn't Relevant Until Now We Weren't Friends

by Dragon_in_a_CypressSwamp



Series: Selkie Tales [1]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Heart Pirate Hats Hide Secrets, Not Serious, Selkies, Silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:48:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24772663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragon_in_a_CypressSwamp/pseuds/Dragon_in_a_CypressSwamp
Summary: Oda:  continues to give nothing on the Heart Pirates, refuses to show half of Penguin's face, names Heart Pirates after animals, calls Law a spotted seal, and dresses them all in silly suitsMe, batting around the conspiracy yarn ball:  What if they're selkies, lol, we've seen mermaids and krakens and-waitMe, tangling myself in conspiracy yarn like a cat and laughing like a maniac: WHY DOES THIS MAKE SENSE?!  WHY IS THIS SO FUNNY?!Aka:  a short set in an indeterminate future point where the Heart Pirates reveal the selkie thing to the Strawhats on an otherwise Totally Normal Day on the Grandline
Relationships: Heart Pirates & Trafalgar D. Water Law, Strawhat Pirates & Heart Pirates
Series: Selkie Tales [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1806724
Comments: 10
Kudos: 116





	It Wasn't Relevant Until Now We Weren't Friends

“Guys, there’s a storm coming in,” Nami says with a grimace. Everyone stuck on the sandbar without their ships in sight groaned.

“Traffy,” Luffy says seriously, one hand on his hat as he peered into the sky, “your plan sucked.”

“IT WAS GOING FINE UNTIL BLACKLEG-YA CAUGHT THE SHIP ON FIRE!!!” Law whirled with a roar.

“We’re lucky we didn’t go down with that ship,” Usopp rubbed his arm, looking away. “…at least it wasn’t either of ours. Can anybody sense the Sunny or Polar Tang yet?”

Luffy, Law, and Sanji all closed their eyes, tilting their heads to the side.

“No.”

“Nope.”

“Sadly not. But worry not, at least Moss Head isn’t there to get them lost.”

“OY!” Zoro called over from his pile of lounging around on each other with Penguin and Shachi.

“The Sunny does have Jinbei at the helm,” Nami mused, “between him, Robin, Franky, and Brook they should be able to find us fine. They’ve got a vivre card.”

“Don’t underestimate Bepo either!” Penguin says, “Our navigator has vivre cards for all the Heart Pirates.”

They all nodded, choosing to believe in their companions.

Law of course broke it. “…How bad a storm?”

“…in Grand Line terms?” Nami looked up at the sky, twisting her hands around her clima-staff idly. “…Bad.”

Usopp turned to jelly and fell to the ground with another groan. Penguin poked him with the butt of his spear.

“Oh…We are completely exposed. On a sandbar,” Law commented, looking at it. “So if local sealevel rises it will be underwater. Or possibly washed away. Even non-devil fruit users could drown.”

“QUIT SAYING THESE THINGS SO CASUALLY!”

It immediately began to rain.

“I’ll protect you Nami-swan!” Sanji leapt into action, removing his coat and holding it over her head.

It started raining at a 45 degree angle.

Law looked back at Penguin and Shachi, exchanging a long look while the Strawhats did their thing. Run around. Moan about dying. Try to punch clouds but not be able to stretch far enough. Accept death and lean back against their allies to prepare to swim towards the ships but probably end up swimming in circles and drowning like a dumbass.

“Shachi…” Law starts, and his friend frowns at him, adjusting his hat.

The rain shifted, now full horizontal. Several people twitched.

“I’ll do it if you do it!” Shachi says past the sound of thunder.

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Law complains.

“It does though?” Penguin backs up his best friend.

Lightning flashed green.

“Fine, I’ll do it to. Even though I literally can’t swim,” Law grumbles before raising his voice. “Oi! We’ve got a plan.”

“What could your plan possibly consist of?!” Usopp accused, gesturing at the nothingness. Against all narrative convention, there wasn’t even a single palm tree on the sandbar of an ‘island’.

“As long as it gets us back to our crew,” Nami folded her arms, waiting.

Law jerked his thumb to his crew. “Shachi will swim us.”

“HOW IS THAT GOING TO…wo…rk…”

For once it was the Strawhats left gaping as Shachi walked waist height into the surf, took off his hat, shook it off, put it back on and…changed.

In a cloud of pretty, sparkly lights, like a magical girl anime.

His namesake, an orca, was flopped in his place. He immediately started throwing his weight around, heading to deeper water where he wasn’t beached.

There is a stunned silence as they all watch his progress.

“…He’s been an orca-zoan this entire time?” Zoro asks incredulously.

“COOL!” Luffy shouts, bouncing up and down.

“…He’s going to drown,” Sanji points out.

“He’s not a Devil-fruit eater,” Law says, tugging the brim of his cap as Penguin came up to stand beside him, watching their friend’s progress. “He’s a selkie.”

Sanji made a strangled noise.

“What’s a selkie?” Nami asked, as Luffy tilted his head. Usopp finally stood up again, flipping his goggles down so he could see without a face full of water.

“I thought they were supposed to turn into seals,” Usopp commented.

Penguin sniggered. Law pointedly ignored him.

“I thought they were supposed to be beautiful women who wore magic seal-skin pelts,” Sanji pouts, “and if you took the pelt, they’d marry you.”

“That’s kidnapping,” Law said darkly. Penguin grimaced.

Sanji flinched back, “I’m just saying that’s the myth, you bastard.”

“We’re like ninjas,” Penguin shrugged a shoulder, “or cyborgs or real dragons. We have a magic pelt that magically turns us into a magic sea creature. We don’t have to be seals.”

“…Huh,” Usopp rubbed his chin as Luffy’s eyes started sparkling. “How do these pelts work? Can anybody get one and use it?”

“Trade secret,” Law replies. “I think Shachi is far enough out now,” he snaps his hand out, spinning up a Room and relocating them all to Shachi’s back, to his annoyed splashing. He was, however, deep enough to accommodate their weight. “Nami-ya, can you direct him?” he offered over Bepo’s scrap of vivre card.

“Huh? Can’t you follow it?” She asks, accepting it nonetheless.

Law kneels further up Shachi’s body, on his head to peer over the side at his friend’s eye, ignoring her. “Do I really have to do this?”

“Yes Captain,” Penguin insisted with a smirk, taking his hat off and shaking it out into a distinctive feathery pelt.

“Fine,” Law sighs, taking his hat off as he straightens, shaking it out to reveal a pelt.

“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!” the Strawhats shrieked.

“Traffy’s been a selkie this whole time?!”

“Traffy’s been a mythical creature this whole time?!”

“It’s never been relevant,” Law grumbles, donning the cloak at Penguin’s smirking insistence.

A sparkly moment later, where he knelt is a grumpy spotted seal with weird tattoos.

After that, Penguin becoming a penguin was almost anticlimactic.

“…is this where the Germa 66 got the idea for their mystery transforming clothes?” Luffy asks, and everyone looks at Sanji.

“Why are you looking at me?! Do you think I know?!” He shouts.

Law lays his seal-y head down, a long limp noodle carefully avoiding Shachi’s blowhole. It was a good thing Shachi was a strong pirate and a huge bull orca, like he was compensating for being the shortest Heart Pirate or something. “It is, yes. According to the Adventures of Sora, the Germa 66 at one point captured and experimented on large groups of—“  
“Does all your information on them come from comics?!” Sanji seethes.

“So Selkies are well known in the North?” Nami asks, as Luffy pokes Penguin. He squawks, leaning away from him and flapping his wings. He pokes him again. “If everyone reads those comics.”

“Sort of,” Law admits as Shachi starts to pick up speed, “we’re easily confused with zoans, mermaids, fishpeople, or just normal animals if you don’t actually see our pelts. So we’re well known, but not usually recognizable.”

“In general, we don’t advertise,” Penguin jump-skidded away from the poking, wings wildly flailing. “Nobody wants to risk attracting the wrong sort of attention.”

“Makes sense,” Sanji looks out over the ocean, hair waving in the wildly blowing storm winds, easily standing atop the wildly swaying back of Shachi as he swam at the surface of the rough water. “Beautiful women, left exposed and entrapped by any cur who should—“

“Fishpeople?” Zoro wondered, a small smirk on his face from the wild ride. “Whales aren’t fish.”

“Yeah they are,” Luffy protests.

“No I’m not!” Shachi protests, jumping from one wave crest to the next. Penguin falls over, flailing, until Law catches him under a flipper. Despite all logic, the round seal does not roll, slide, or flail off of the round, smooth back of the whale despite having nothing except some short claws and flippers with which to grip.

“Oh, okay,” Luffy says, slowly losing interest past the entertainment of leaping and splashing and storm winds and pounding rain and hail of sponges through the multi-colored lightning speckled sky. However, he had a single burning question he still wanted answered.

“Some selkies have fish pelts,” Law says, “Shore animals are most common, but others are not unheard of.”

“But where do you get the pelts?” Usopp wonders, clinging to Shachi’s dorsal fin with a death grip. “Are you just born with them? Do you make them? Can anyone use a selkie pelt or is there something special about you or what?”

“Trade secret,” Law repeats as Penguin does his best to attach himself to his captain with a beak and flippers. Law completely ignores this.

“Ah-HA! So we could use it if we got our hands on—“

“If you steal any of my crew’s pelts I will skin you,” Law threatened, revealing great big fangs and reminding Usopp and Nami that yes, seals are predators and not just silly cute floppy barky things. Usopp quickly backed up and almost fell off Shachi’s back during the next jump. Sanji caught his arm and pulled him back onto the whale.

“We’re not going to do that; we’re friends!” Luffy points out. “Also, do you—“

“We are not friends, we’re allies,” Law grumbles despite all evidence to the contrary. Even his own crew ignores these assertions at this point.

The hail of sponges transitions to a significantly less comfortable rain of coral. Penguin ducks further under Law’s flipper. Nami barks directions to fend off the ‘more painful to be hit at terminal velocity’ substance.

“Do you poop?” Luffy asks curiously, unaffected due to being rubber.

“Yes,” Law responds with the reflexive seriousness of a doctor as Nami’s directions temporarily screech into frustration at being surrounded by idiots. “I don’t know why you’d think we wouldn’t.”

Luffy laughs wildly until stung by a piece of fire coral.

Just another day in the New World.

**Author's Note:**

> Been working on a longer thing using the 'Heart Pirates = Selkie' premise for a while now, so might post some more of this stuff :p


End file.
